


one and nineteen more; a foray into the nature of nervous breakdown

by Mints (HeadedMints)



Series: Ideal Spidey [1]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: I tried really hard, Other, This is confusing, have fun?? i tried, i dont really know what im doing with this, pete gets his shit fucked - a study in the parker luck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadedMints/pseuds/Mints
Summary: peter is running on fumes at this point; just the wisps of what was once angry resolution and bittered ideology burning themselves out only to light new, different flames. he can't say anything, can't put a name to the fire that keeps him going, keeps him doing this. something in him always aches with the thought.it's eating him up.





	1. and how would she know?

**Author's Note:**

> no capitalization cuz i'm a greasy ho. took a long time to get this out bc it never really felt right, yknow? hope you enjoy it - despite it all, i know i did.
> 
> edit: pulled my shit together and capitalized. also coat!spidey is my favorite, specially big coats... like the andrew garfield on set energy a lot... hm. anyway, thanks. this probably makes no sense to people who aren't living in my head, because yeah.. idealized spidey..! but i hope you like it anyways.

Peter tries to close the door behind him as possible, shivering a little from the cold. He sets his bag gently on the floor just down the hall after carefully kicking off his shoes, padding on the glossed fake wood in socked feet. It's late, far later than he would've liked to be home. Sometime past midnight on Christmas Eve, technically Christmas: yet Spidey has no curfews or holidays because the city never sleeps, which means criminals never sleep either, apparently. Peter had changed on the roof and nearly froze to death trying to hide from any prying eyes. Once he'd finished he just packed up the spider suit and threw on a winter coat and a hat to make it look like he'd just been out. He shoves his hat in his jacket pocket once he gets inside, thinking nothing of it.

 

His aunt, however, obviously doesn't feel the same way.

 

"Peter." She's sitting at the counter bent over a cup of coffee barely smoking, a couple papers strewn about, some messily stacked. Her hand loosely holds a pen, and her entire posture screams exhaustion. Her face is drawn up in a stern line though, showing none of the tired air of the rest of her, serious and ever unrelenting. "Nice of you to finally come home."

 

"Hey, um." Peter slowly makes his way over to her seat, not taking one himself. Her gaze burns guilt into his very bones, and his spidey sense flares, a throbbing, shaking panic attack at the back of his brain and the base of his neck, a flash of colors sharpening by the second. "Aunt may. I, uh, didn't think you'd be up this late."

 

"Was waiting for you," She straightens her papers before turning to him all the way, standing up. peter backs up a little to keep the distance, as if that will keep her eyes from landing on him and setting his insides ablaze with shame. Quietly but by no means gentle, she asks, "Where were you tonight?"

 

"Oh, just," He idly picks at the scabs and blisters on his knuckles, half to hide them and half out of sheer nervous habit. Aunt May's eyes slowly trail down to the dried blood on his freezing, shaking hands, staring silent but firm, waiting to strike. "Around town, whatever. You know, walking around a bit."

 

"Didn't know past midnight was a good time to go for a walk. Didn't know walking made your hands bleed," Peter pulls his coat sleeve down a little further. "Get in a fight?"

 

"No, I - it was," And he bites down on the words and chews on his cheek a little, because if he says anything it'll kill her, and it'll be all his fault, and she'll throw him out on the street for being a mutant vigilante. He swallows past the bit of blood pooling on the outside of his gums, "They - they're old, anyways. Just cold tonight, made them open up again."

 

"So this has been going on for a while, now? Is that it?" Her voice reaches the verge of being raised, somehow still just as threatening as if she were screaming. A new wave of mortification crashes over him, heavy and thick, sucking the air out of his lungs like a punch to the stomach. "Is this why you're failing all your classes? Why you're going to end up flunking freshman year?"

 

"Aunt May, I really didn't -" Peter takes a deep breath through his teeth, trying to recover, coming closer. Aunt May doesn't move, and he gestures wildly, trying to convey everything without spilling out what he knows he can't say. He opens his arms, hands spread out in front of him, "It's not what you think."

 

"Then tell me what it _is_ , Peter. You," He watches her eyes go sad, twinged with the sadness he'd so desperately been trying to keep her from. "You have to choose what's really important, and soon - because you're going to crash and burn if you don't."

 

"You wouldn't understand," And that finally sets her off the edge.

 

"Because you won't tell me!" She cries, every crease of her face wrought with a deep, cutting anger and despair that digs deep into his heart and uproots his very soul. Tears burn the edges of his eyes, and his mouth twists into an unavoidable scowl. "I won't ever understand if you don't tell me why - why you're always out so late, why you can't even pass a class! I'm worried about you, Peter - this isn't like you."

 

"You don't know what _I'm_ like, you don't! why would I tell _you_ -?! You think," He shouts back, and his every muscle aches with time and the cold and bruises old and new, and his knuckles sear hot as he balls up his hands tight into fists. Heat pours wet and hot down his face, and spit tries to fight its way out of his mouth with each word. "You think whatever you want, but, but I'm not even _your_ kid! I'm not some kid anymore, I -"

 

"Then act like it! When," She leans against the counter, brushing greying hair from her face. Her body tiredly slumps a little, hand resting on her forehead before she continues, forcibly straightening. "When are you going to start caring about _your_ school, _your_ health; _your_ life, Peter? When can i stop caring for you? When are _you_ going to actually do something about where your life is headed?"

 

"H - you, you -" There's nothing he can really say: because isn't she right? He feels the crying contort his face, violently twisting his grimace in a way only sadness can, feels the guilt and the anger and the doubt and sadness and hate boiling in him and bubbling up and burning his inside, running acidic. All his own words turn back at him, daggers piercing every single soft point and bleeding him out. He knows he's the wrong one, knows she's always been right, he knows he's so so stupid, stupid _stupidstupid_ to think this would ever work out _-_

 

Peter screams. Through the tears and the spit and the snot he screams at no one in particular, red faced and wailing, holding his head in his hands and tearing at his face and his hair. His claws fold, refusing to cut. It's pathetic, it's childish - and yet he can't stop the tears from falling, can't stop the heat from coming up and eating him alive from the inside out in the middle of their apartment at two in the morning.

 

"Peter -" Aunt May goes to touch him, to give some form of comfort: and like the idiot he's always been, he pulls away. Peter pulls back and stumbles his way to the door, barely grabbing his bag as he pushes out into the hall and runs to the stairs up to the roof without any shoes on. Aunt May follows a ways behind him, probably terrified at the horrible potential of bloodshed every rooftop holds. "Peter!"

 

She's not close enough behind him to catch him hastily pulling on his suit and shoving his clothes in his bag, throwing his coat back on and pulling on his hat before looking back to the door one last time, sprinting to the edge, and throwing himself off the rooftop.

 

Peter drops low enough and fast enough so that the terror registers, arms tucked tight against his sides as the air whips angrily around his face, viciously clawing at his cheeks and his tears through his mask. His spidey sense explodes in a hot burst of vibrant panic just as he swings up, barely avoiding becoming another splatter on the pavement, and as his socked feet graze the tops of the cars moving past he forgets for a little moment just why he's really out here, and where he's headed now.

 

May Parker does not see Peter jump off the roof; she doesn't see him at all. She does not find her nephew contemplating if the fall would be enough, or if he really, really should. She does not find him at all that night, and it takes her a long time before she heads back to their apartment, if only to fall into one of counter chairs crying, wondering where he could be and hoping he's alright. May Parker is by no means a religious woman, but if there is a god out there, she silently begs them to bring her nephew - her _son_ \- her peter home safe.


	2. you thought -

Peter stops swinging somewhere along the way and walks the rest of the streets to the graveyard sitting on the edge of the Hudson, way up at the far edge of Harlem. He makes it there sometime around four, walks the rows with purpose: he knows where he's going. He recognizes the short little tombstone without even reading the name, and quietly weaves between the other graves as straight as he can towards it.

 

"Hey, Uncle Ben," He whispers in a sigh, tucking his hands deep into his pockets. He shivers a bit as the snow melts into his socks. His feet are freezing numb, enough that they hurt to move. His bruises ache a little more with the winter chill. "Cold tonight, huh?"

 

The headstone, being a hunk of rock with a name carved on it, says nothing.

 

"So, Unck. You ever," Shaking, Peter weakly sets himself down next to the tombstone, tiredly leaning against it to fight the shudders wracking his body. It offers comfort but not warmth, a hard edge in the crook of his back instead of a gentle hand. "Ever wonder if you're doing the right thing? And maybe - maybe you're just causing trouble for everbody, and, and -?"

 

The wind gusts past him in a vague blustery shape, cutting deep. Snow slowly starts to fall, tiny white flecks aimlessly drifting. A stray dead leaf rakes a jagged path through the snow.

 

"Yeah, yeah. Aunt May never - she never yelled at you, right?" he brings his knees up to his chest, feeling a hollow point crack and open up somewhere inside him while his heart steadily climbs up into his throat. the frown returns, now covered by thin red cloth. he's choking on the tears, coughing and snuffling in the faint light of a distant streetlamp, curling up beside uncle ben's grave. "I ...I still miss you. I really, really do, honest. and I swear I didn't mean for it t - I didn't want this to -"

 

Something cuts the excuses off before they can fall out of his mouth. He shivers a little more, coming closer to the tombstone. Peter coughs between heaving, clouded breaths, face red and hot, tears streaming down his cheeks and snot threatening to fall sticky beneath spider man's empty stare.

 

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

 

Peter Parker cries himself to sleep out in the cold, huddling against a headstone to try and fight the winter stabbing deep through his coat and rattling him to the very core.

 

The sun is out when he wakes up, a thin layer of snow falling off him as he sits up, slowly making his way onto unfeeling feet so cold they're hot. He stumbles out of the grass and onto the sidewalk, walking to where he thinks Broadway is: at least, if he remembers right. He pulls out his phone on his way down the street, and the clock reads some time around noon. A few people are out on the pavement, but no one really sees who he is past the hood of his jacket. None of them say anything to him, at least: and today is the only day that's a blessing.

 

A woman finally notices him when he goes to cross the intersection between Amsterdam Avenue and West 125th, immediately changing her course and coming over to him.

 

"Ah, you're Spider Man!" Peter sluggishly turns to her, still half asleep. His head is still head pounding from crying all night. She's got short black hair than falls all around her face and square, wide frame glasses, standing way shorter than him. "Um, hey there, merry Christmas. Not taking a holiday?"

 

"Nah. City to save, people to protect." He manages, nearly choking on his own casual tone. His throat is dry, sore, and just the very topic of him makes it uncomfortably clear that he isn't okay and probably won't be for a while, peeling the scabs off yesterday's fresh gouges. Trying to ignore the horrible, biting cold pain cutting through his socks, he coughs a little and continues, "So, where you headed?"

 

"Oh, I'm meeting some friends down at," She pulls out her phone, fidgeting with her scarf a moment before tucking it away again. She brushes stray hair from her face, breath fogging thick. "Amy Ruth's. Just something casual, a chance to see each other after a while."

 

"Cool, cool. You mind if i," Peter shifts his weight, awkward, trying to push away everything but here and now, trying not to think about what happened or what really comes next. "Tag along? Walk with you 'til you get there?"

 

"Oh no, no, you don't have to. You're," she pushes up her glasses, trying to pick out exactly what she wants to say. "You're Spider Man! You're probably busy."

 

"Am not. Not now, at least," He'd go for his glasses too if he actually had them on. She seems on the fence between wanting him to come and not wanting to trouble him, so he thinks a moment and continues, "And _I'm_ the one offering, so it's not inconveniencing me any. If it bothers you, I won't, but I'll come. ...if you don't mind."

 

"Well, sure, no problem. Thank you," She ends the last part in a stressed little whisper, voice dying out just slightly. Peter falls into step beside her, the simple rhythm of it helping to ease that aching hole sitting in his chest. They walk in silence for a while; usually Peter would be perfectly content with the quiet, but now it drives Spider Man up the wall, his head throbbing with white noise.

 

"So, you just visiting? or," She seems surprised with him breaking the static. He waits for an answer, hearing his lenses softly click as they shift with his eyes. "You, you work here? Got family in Manhattan?"

 

"Oh, no. One of my friends has a article going here," She turns down Hancock and onto St. Nicholas Avenue, and he follows limping beside her, his wider strides the only thing keeping him up to pace. "It's on you, actually."

 

"Hmm." Peter's not quite ecstatic to have yet another reporter attacking him.

 

"It's nothing bad, though! He actually likes what you're doing, sort of," She must see his distaste despite the mask. They pass through 122nd with the uneasy quiet slowly building, and he can feel the air go thorny, awkward. She makes a little noise, continuing, just a bit bolder this time, "He thinks more people like you should be doing something, if they can do anything. Thinks the police should be working with you instead of against you."

 

"Should put a word in with the cops, then," She laughs a little, letting out a quiet chuckle from her throat as she pushes her treacherous hair back again. Peter sucks a wheezing breath in through his teeth, almost gritting them against the cold. He sees the lights, pointing out the quaint red building with an almost shaking hand, "Hey, that it?"

 

"Oh - yes, yeah," He follows her up to the door, hesitating at the threshold as she pushes it open. The burst of warm air that gushes out is comforting, tantalizing, the yellow light soothing in the winter cold. "Do you... do you want to come sit with us? If you're not spending your holiday with anyone else."

 

The app he's got goes off, the voice on the line firm but tired, wanting to be anywhere but there; there's a break in in progress on West 121st, near Lenox. He listens to the broadcast in a thoughtful silence, hears it call for any nearby officers. He knows he's barely a block or two away from where they need help. Peter weighs the two, blissful ignorance and near - oppressive duty in opposite mental hands, and quietly but firmly decides between them.

 

"Aw, sorry," Peter says for the second time today. His body preemptively hurts in the cold, bruises not yet there already aching without having been painted all across him. "Something just came up. And besides; no shoes, no service."

 

"Hey, earth to Dora Skirth," Someone calls from inside - but it's invitational, impatient but excited, happy, warm. The wind bites hard as it tears down the street. "C'mon!"

 

"Hey, wait!" Dora calls out as he shoots up in a tight arc, swinging wide into the turn as he hurtles fast above the road, the words blowing away in the winter gust.

 

He reaches the spot soon enough. A group of thugs busies themselves trying to crack open a door, about four or five of them in all. Snow drifts idly around Peter, floating past his perch just across the street. He dangles himself upside down from a fire escape, hat near falling off as he lowers himself to the alleyway.

 

"Alright, guys. Where's your holiday spirit?" They all turn on him immediately, in surprise and in anger. He continues, trying to keep the false mirth in his voice, trying to shove away his swollen red eyes and pounding headache, "Now I'm not big on christmas, but I do know you're supposed to be doing some giving: not taking."

 

"Spider Man! don't just stand there -" They've got nothing serious; a crowbar or two, mostly their fists. They fan out, widespread in the alley, divided. Ready and begging to be conquered. "Get him!"

 

Peter pulls the Smallest one close to him with a web shot, cracking his nose with a single punch and bringing him to the ground. The spatter of blood runs warm against his freezing, bruised knuckles; but there is no comfort in the heat, no solitude found in the flowing red - and there shouldn't be. The day he finds peace in blood is the day that Spider Man is packed away, and the day both him and Peter Parker die.

 

He jumps up onto the wall, launching himself off of it and into the second of the men. Peter's fist lands square in his chest. He leans back and drives his foot as hard as he can across the man's face and is repaid in full immediately: pain spikes hot up his leg as far as his ankle, burning. He stumbles, watching as the last three converge on him, cornering him with his back to the bricks. He's tired, everything hurts, and two of them manage to pin him to the wall by the arms, leaving the third with crowbar in hand.

 

He swings up into peter's stomach and it's like his insides shift. All the air gets pushed out of him, and each hit leaves him wheezing worse, choking and coughing, held fast against the side of the building. blood and bile rise hot and acidic in his throat. The man keeps swinging, unrelenting, and Peter prays to whatever cruel god there is he'll pass out, because anything would be better than feeling each blow leaving behind the bloody welts forming all over his torso. Peter struggles to move his arm, twisting his wrist, trying to figure the right angle.

 

He webs the man on his left and watches him recoil, trying to wipe it out of his eyes and letting go of his arm. The man with the crowbar cracks it square across Peter's face and he feels a tooth come completely loose, the awful copper taste of blood running fresh and thick from the hole in his gums. Peter rips his arm away from the thug on his right, sticking his arms to his chest with another web and picking him up, throwing him at the other unarmed man still trying to free his face.

 

Peter tackles the man with the crowbar, straddling his chest and throwing punch after punch, over and over again, his own bruises blossoming and growing, spreading from his fists to the man beneath him, blood running warm and free once more. His knuckles bleed and blister, scrabs crack and wounds grow worse, and his face goes hot with tears; it does nothing to help him, nothing to help anything, and nothing is helped or fixed or made better. 

The man is badly beaten and his nose is damn near shattered, but he's still breathing, even if only barely.

 

Spider Man stands slowly on shaking legs and pained, frozen feet. Peter pulls up his mask just enough to spit out his tooth, a trail of blood following it like a long red streamer.

 

He pulls himself onto the roof of the funeral home opposite the apartment they were trying to break into, lying on his back and staring up to the star speckled sky. He zips up his coat, tugs his hat a little further down, and pulls on his hood. The cold still bites and his body still aches, both without pause. Peter checks his phone: only four, coming on five now. He's so, so tired.

 

He falls asleep to the white static rumble of the traffic down below and the whine of police sirens, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his stomach beneath the blood soaked fabric of the suit.


	3. - you knew

In a single occupant bathroom with the door locked, Peter rolls down his suit and surveys the damage. A huge purple and red cloud completely encompasses all of his stomach, one side of it covered in cuts busy scabbing over. His cheek is in a similar state, though far more crimson - bloody looking than his torso. They barely missed his eye, but one of his permanent teeth on the top row got knocked clean out; the one closest to the middle that's still on the outside of his left canine is gone. His feet burn with the pain of finally warming up, the cold slowly fading and being replaced with an unbearable heat.

 

He pulls everything back on before leaving the bathroom, muttering as many words of thanks as is humanly possible to the nearest employee as he stumbles back out onto the street. He zips up to the roof, body bitterly, painfully protesting. It's early morning, sometime around eight, and the sun hasn't even quite risen yet, still half asleep itself. Peter opens up the news app on his phone, trying to find something to take his mind off the bruises and the metallic twinge still sticky in his mouth.

 

" _\- arlem residents report seeing Spider Man at a small, riverside cemetery, huddled next to a gravestone on Christmas_ ," The anchor says, straightening her papers. His mind does leave the ache of his body - and it turns right to Aunt May, to him running away and jumping from the roof and crying in the snow that night, unable to control himself in any way, shape, or form. she continues, " _Some people see this as cause for alarm, due to an apparent rise in Spider Man's presence on a wide scale across new york. The vigilante justice enacted by_..."

 

He ignores the news a moment, trying to wrangle his breathing. His cheek throbs in rhythm with his stomach, his gums aching tender. Peter pulls on the pom pom at the top of his hat, trying to do anything to destress without falling into another crying fit. His chest shudders, his eyes scrunch up, and slowly but surely he turns back to the broadcast, another bawling fit nearly avoided, feelings barely held under control - though not nearly as bad as yesterday.

 

" _Police advise Queens residents to be on the lookout for fifteen year old Peter Parker, who went missing an hour or so after midnight on Christmas morning_ ," Peter's school picture is onscreen, his glasses casting shadows over his face, his eyes pressed up by a small, half forced smile. A different reporter talks over this segment, continuing, " _Peter is around six foot three, about one hundred and fifty pounds. He was last seen around Forest Hills at his apartment complex on Juno street; if anyone has any information or has seen Peter, please contact nine - one - one as soon as possible_."

 

He stands; snow's falling this morning, too, in thick white flecks. As Peter Parker emotionally crumbles and mentally caves in, Spider Man quietly prepares for his first patrol of the day.

 

He takes the long way all the way to lower Manhattan, swinging slow down the street, taking his time. Peter follows Park Avenue, stopping for every picture and talking with every single stranger willing to listen or in need of someone to lend an ear. In the end, he makes his way all the way down to Central Park just to stop at the zoo.

 

A gaggle of kids follows him in a huge cloud of multicolor coats, and he reads the facts off the podiums at every exhibit over the course of a couple hours, collecting children and parents alike as he walks through. Cameras and phones come out; he'll be sure to check later for all the pictures and videos, and he'll be sure to retweet and tag and like every post with the nywebhead and nywallcrawler. He high fives every single kid on his way out, nearly drowning in a group hug of massive proportions before saying his last goodbyes and slowly hobbling his way onto Fifth.

 

There are way too many expensive stores around Trump Tower - Peter can feel himself getting poorer by the second, so he speeds his way down Fifth in a red and blue blur. He stops again at the New York public library: at first it was just to look at a few books and get out of the cold, but he ends up reading almost half a youth novel to a small circle of people of all ages. He'd never thought his voice was very captivating, or that his reading skills were very highbrow or that his taste in books was super good, yet with an eight year old in his lap it's hard to not keep reading on. The librarian asks him to come in again sometime, but he makes her no promises.

 

He ends up perched on the Washington square arch for a tourist's picture or two on his way to Chinatown, but it doesn't last very long. Besides, a police officer keeps giving him the stink eye until he finally swings away, faster than before this time. Peter is in no mood to get arrested; when is he ever? It's dark by the time he leaves the park, so he climbs up onto the highest point of NYU's business school and pulls his hood up, ready to sleep until tomorrow and continue onto lower Manhattan in the morning. 

Peter's not quite ready to go back yet. He doesn't think he could handle Aunt May's feelings any better than he can his own, and guilt and worry and all kinds of things gnaw at his insides. He won't cross the Brooklyn Bridge until he can face her, and even then he's not sure how he'll be able to come back home after all he's done. The great distance from Uncle Ben gives him no one to really talk to, so his thoughts are left unsorted, piling up in the back of his head in a messy mound, blurring together and smudging and distorting the margins and lines.

 

Everything still hurts. He's still tired, he's still hungry. Ignoring the problems does nothing to help them; in fact, all his day out does is give him a cold even worse than the one he had the night before.

 

The next day is really only more of the same. He lingers around New York University until sometime near ten, trying to connect with as many tired college students as possible. Tons of people get pictures with him, even if they're running late to classes or barely running on their third kickstart. Even a professor stops to talk with him, late to her own lecture: Peter's sure to keep that conversation a brief one, if only for her sake.

 

He wanders through the Supreme at the mall just off Lafayette, knowing full well that he can't afford anything anywhere in there, let alone in anything in any single store. Someone even offers to buy him some shoes as he mills around, and while he would like to keep his feet from completely freezing again, he can't take money from a total stranger - especially while being a missing person under the guise of a masked vigilante.

 

Peter stops at the Seven - Eleven on Walker Street, digging out all of the change in the bottom of his bag just so he can get a slushee in the dead of winter: and while he's sick, too. At the counter, he avoids looking at the missing persons posters for too long. he's too afraid of seeing himself among the lost faces, too scared to look at the pictures and see himself staring back.

 

He swings down Baxter until he reaches Columbus Park: there's been a strange lull in insane and unexplainable crime in Manhattan long enough that he's been able to go more than a day without intervening. The snow's been mostly cleared away, and he finds a group of kids scribbling with chalk all over one of the paths. He recognizes his own logo almost immediately, dropping down mid swing and making his way over to the little artist herself.

 

"Oh, hey. Hey, did you draw that?" He points to the huge, neon red and blue drawing sprawling across the pavement that he assumes is him. The girl nods, dumbstruck to the point of silence. Her friends stand near motionless behind her as he bends down, feeling the pain spike and deciding to ignore it. "Wow, just. That is so awesome, dude! So cool."

 

"Thanks," She smiles at that, laughing a little. Her hands intertwine, her fingers tangling in each other before they move up to her long black hair, brushing through easily, not stopping on any knots. "You're way cooler."

 

"Aww, no way. You are definitely the coolest one out of the two of us." She giggles a little more. He notices she has a little homemade Spider Man patch sloppily sewn onto the sleeve of her coat, and he smiles beneath the mask against aches and scabs before continuing, "What's your name?"

 

"Olivia."

"Alright, Olivia. High five?" She smiles even wider, jumping up to slap both his hands as he holds them above his head. Peter turns to her friends, bystanders to the spectacle that is him, that is Spider Man. He rests his arms on his knees a moment to brace himself, addressing them directly before standing up, "You guys want some too?"

 

Peter ends up hanging out with Olivia and some other kids from Chinatown for the rest of the day. They totally obliterate him in a snowball fight; it's four against one, which he finds more than just a little unfair, even if he is a superhero. Turns out Olivia does chalk a lot: she draws him all the time, apparently, on and with practically anything she can get her hands on. She offers to do a portrait sometime, and he promises to come by the park whenever he's not busy, promises he'll try to find her here until she gets to draw him with a reference.

 

Olivia's parents show up when it's just about getting dark to take them all home. He can almost feel the gratitude radiating from them in the air, and he'd have to blind to not see how happy they are to see him with her.

 

"Thank you so much," One of her fathers tells him as her dad gathers the four of them up. Peter shakes his outstretched hand, beaming despite the pain of it, his smile opening up the great, bloody patch on his face. "Olivia really looks up to you, you know. Never stops talking about how great Spider Man is."

 

"Hey, it's no trouble," Peter looks over to Olivia, who's tugging on her dad's coat sleeve and pointing at him like a madman, furiously whispering, jumping up and down. He grins a little wider against the ache of his cheek, the scab cracking further. "Good to know there's someone who'll always have my back."

 

"Ah, right. Really, thank you again." Her father smiles as he turns to head off to his husband. He calls back as they walk away, each of Olivia's hands in one of theirs, leaving her swinging her feet between them, "You have a good night! And stay safe!"

 

"Hey, you too!" Peter watches them walk to their car, waiting until he can't see them anymore. He looks around a moment to see that no one's around, pulls up his mask and coughs, nearly hacking up a lung. His throat hurts almost as bad as the rest of him, if not worse, and he's congested to the point of not even being able to breathe out of his nose. His feet are starting to freeze over again, and his bruises are only turning a deeper red and purple instead of healing over yellow. He has practically nothing to his name but his exhaustion and his hunger.

 

But most importantly, he misses Aunt May. He misses home, and he misses her; he misses her so, so much.

 

Peter lies down on the roof of a seafood market nearby after Olivia's family finally clears out, shivering in the cold even with his coat zipped all the way up and his hat pulled all the way down to his ears. He struggles a little to prop himself up on his bag, his clothes providing little support or comfort. Everything hurts in one way or another, and the gaping hole he's been trying so hard to plug up and look away from starts flooding and overflowing with all the feelings he's been trying to ignore.

 

He cries again that night, just like the first, except Uncle Ben is not there for him to lean against.


	4. but she will always be there.

Hunger gnaws at him, digging deep beneath the bruises and hollowing him out. Peter's gone dumpster diving to help Miles find some parts a couple times before, but never for food - and he's not sure he wants to start now. It's windy today, the air howling around buildings and street lamps: it's no weather for patrol, that's for sure. But he slips on his hood and rolls his shoulders a little before dropping off the roof, dangling low in the street with the wind roaring in his ears as he swings down Mulberry.

 

" _Got a wreck on Canal, at the intersection with Walker,_ " The police broadcast plays, barely fighting to be heard over the wind. " _Any nearby officers, please head over immediately to assist the injured._ "

 

Peter takes a sharp left onto Canal Street, seeing the accident almost immediately. He drops down to survey the wreckage, trying not to slip in the icy road, feet aching as they try to support the weight of his body. One car is upside down, two others sort of partway on top of each other just a little ways away. He walks slowly, focusing on keeping his balance as he stumbles over to the single car. Someone's hanging from their seat, not moving. There's no blood that he can see: he's not sure if that's good or bad.

 

"Alright, I got you. God - please be okay, please be okay," Peter reaches inside and carefully draws them out, fully picking them up when he's sure they aren't badly injured. He lies them down away from the wreck, moving onto the next set of cars once he makes sure they're still breathing.

 

"Hey - in here!" Someone calls from the car underneath the other. He sees their hands on the window, palms shadows against the glass. He jumps up onto the side of car just enough so they can see him, and they point just below their window, gesturing at the other car's side. "The door's stuck! I can't get out!"

 

"Just hang tight! You'll be okay, hang on," He checks the top car first, giving a hand up to the driver and pulling them out once they grab hold, setting them on their feet off to the side. He moves again to the car on the bottom, hooking his freezing hands below the vehicle on top of it, bracing against the preemptive pain building in his stomach.

 

Peter lifts it painfully slow, heaving it off of the car below it and onto its back. He forces the door open, metal bending and twisting beneath the force of his grip, helping out the last of the people in the wreck.

 

"Wait here until the police show up," Peter's throat stings with each word, a cough sitting low in his mouth, waiting to spiral off into a choking fit. He points to the other car, waiting until their eyes follow before continuing, "There's another person over there - try and keep them warm until the paramedics get here."

 

"Thank you," He hears one of them call as he pulls himself back into the air, trying to keep his feet off the ground and stay on the move. The wind dies down long enough for him to hear them yell again, "Thanks, Spider Man!"

 

Peter heads up Baxter in silence for a while, the midday sun just above hidden by thick, columbine snow clouds. His coat whips around behind him, air wildly tugging on it at its whim and fancy. His adrenaline dies down and his nerves fall back, but the cold and the pain and the aches remain constant. The hurt helps him to not focus on the wind as much, helps him try to swing straight and steady. His feet are numb once more, feeling the blustering air only as a cold pain stabbing further and further.

 

" _Narcotics sale reported on a rooftop on Grand, near Lion's Gate."_ The radio crackles after twenty minutes of sitting idle, abandoning any chance at an empty frequency and peaceful day. Peter doesn't even wait to hear the rest. He hurls himself hard into a turn in an effort to get down the street, jumping off his first web and launching high into another swing.

 

He sees the crowd on the roof and throws himself into the one closest to the road, webbing them to rooftop before turning to the rest. His spidey sense sparks, and he barely misses a bullet before reeling in close and nailing the man in the chest with his foot, having learned from last time, expecting the pain. Peter flips back onto his hands and practically somersaults through the man in front of him, moving onto the last two. The first goes down with a few quick punches, the final blow sending him into the air before Peter swings him against the side of the building, making sure he sticks. The last one tries to run for it, so Peter webs him from behind, watching him fall to the ground and struggle to pull himself free from the white prison spread flat all around him.

 

It's late evening by the time he gets another alert from the police frequencies. He's lingering around a karaoke bar on Bowery making idle talk with a homeless man sitting outside when the radio pipes up. A different dispatcher talks over the line: the last one's shift ended a few hours ago, sometime around nine or ten. He stops mid sentence to catch what's being said, holding up a finger as if he's taking a call.

 

" _Suspected_ _kidnapping reported on division street near Yung Wing Elementary,_ " She says, radio static sneaking between each word. He whispers a quick goodbye and promise to come by again to the man before pulling himself up to the rooftops, more than a little bit intrigued. The wind's died down, and the air is left stagnant, peaceful. The city rumbles low in the winter chill. " _Looking for a young girl, six or seven. black hair, brown eyes, about four foot five. Need some officers to check it out._ "

 

Peter swings down the street to Confucious Plaza, going over the top of the building and jumping down to the road in question. He passes by the cars until his spider sense flares up at the back of a scuffed up black sedan. Peter trusts his gut more than most other things - besides Miles, MJ, and Aunt May - and he's pretty sure this is where he needs to look. Glancing to make sure there aren't any cameras or people around, he forces the trunk open, hearing the metal creak and pop as it's torn from the lock.

 

There's a little girl curled up on the floor of the trunk, her scrunched up face stained with lines of tears. He doesn't quite recognize her in the dark of night and the dim streetlight: and that's natural, seeing as he doesn't know every face in New York. That is, until he sees the Spider Man patch on her left shoulder.

 

"Olivia?" Olivia perks up a little at her name, yet she's still visibly scared, backing away from him. Peter reaches out his hand, offering it - praying she's alright, hoping she'll take it. "Hey, hey - it's okay, okay? It's me. it's Spider Man."

 

"Sp... Spider Man?" She sputters, and he knows that voice: he knows the on - the - verge - of - tears quiver in her lip, the sad furrow in her brows, the shine to her eyes, knows all the signs of fear and sadness and hopelessness and aching near crying intimately. Hesitantly, she takes his hand with both of hers, and he pulls her into his arms, making sure to duck her head beneath the trunk door before gently pushing it shut.

 

"Yeah, yeah, it's me, it's good, everything's fine now, it's okay. Are you okay?" She nods, sniffling a little, clutching his chest. His mask does well to hide the angry scowl carved into his face, to cover the contempt and help him manage her now, swearing vengeance all the way to high heaven. He tries to keep a gentle tone to his voice, slowly continuing, "Okay. I'm gonna put you down now, alright?"

 

"I thought, I thought no one would find me, not ever. Y - you," Olivia fails to make the words come out. Her hands move, trying to form the sounds with gestures, struggling to really process the reality of it all. "You -"

 

"I'm gonna call your parents, okay? Do you know their phone number?" Peter hands her his phone, letting her punch the numbers in. The line rings once, twice, and picks up halfway through the third tone.

 

"Hello?" He doesn't recognize the voice, meaning it's her other dad. He sounds panicked, worried and terrified, and the emotion of the word digs deep into Peter. Is this how Aunt May sounded when she called him in missing? Is this how she was each time she called his phone, every time she made each call that he ignored?

 

"Yeah, uhm - this is, is Spider Man," He starts, trying to figure how exactly to put it across. He waits a moment, seeing if he'll hang up, then continues, "Found Olivia in a car near uh, Sunrise Kitchen Supply. She's safe, I got her with me right now, and, um -"

 

"Oh, thank god. We'll be right over," He sighs, exasperated and relieved all at once. Peter hears someone's voice from beyond the phone - probably Olivia's father - and the static of the phone moving, steps being taken. "Thank you, thank you so much. Tell Olivia we'll be there soon. thank you, thank you."

 

"They're on their way." She's clinging to his arm, having to reach up just to grab onto it. He tucks his phone away and pats her head a little and she moves to his side, so he puts his arm around her back. Her arms are too short to even wrap all the way around his waist, herself barely tall enough to actually reach his waist itself. "I'll stay here with you until they get here."

 

"...Okay."

 

The police get there first, and, upon seeing him with a little girl matching the description of the missing child, automatically assume he's the one doing the kidnapping.

 

"Back away from the kid, Spider Man!" The first officer starts coming closer. Peter puts his hands up, but Olivia stays attached to his hip, pulling herself tighter against him as if that'll protect him against bullets and the law, as if she's the only one who can keep him safe.

 

"Stop it! _He_ helped me! He let me out!" olivia cries, and the woman freezes, hand almost on her holster. the little girl at his waist puts herself in front of him, arms outstretched. "He let me out, so just, just leave him alone!"

 

"Even if he did," The officer says, slow and calculated. Her hand does not leave her pistol, her stance still wary, still vaguely on the offensive. "We'll still need to take him in for some questioning on other -"

 

"Olivia!" Her father comes pushing between the few other officers behind the woman at the front, his husband not very far behind. They nearly tackle her and Peter, getting to their knees to give her the biggest hug humanly impossible. Olivia's dad looks up at him and says, with an immeasurable amount of gratitude, "Thank you, so much."

 

"No problem. You stay outta trouble, now. And, hey," Peter ruffles Olivia's hair a little bit, his numb, frozen hands not quite feeling her head. He comes down to her height, his bruises burning as he crouches down, whispering, "I'll call your dad sometime, so you can talk t' me whenever if you want. That okay?"

 

"Alright," She smiles again, head over her father's shoulder. She manages to get one of her arms loose from their slowly lessening embrace to high five him once again, sort of half whispering back, "Bye."

 

"Hey, you can't just -!" The woman shouts, pulling out her pistol and doing her best to train it on his red and blue figure.

 

Despite the officer's protests, Peter zips onto the daycare across the street and jumps from building to buidling, swinging between the bigger air gaps, going as far as he can until he hits the east river, standing on the edge of the water with FDR Road rumbling on just behind him. the Manhattan Bridge beckons only a ways away, almost begging him to come home, pleading with him to come to reason and cross.

 

He is tired, hurting and hungry, his body and his brain and his heart all screaming, yearning, longing for home, for the comfort it provides. Home is Aunt May - warm and inviting, always there for Peter and willing to do anything to help him. But would she be there for Spider Man, for a freak, a mutant, a monster, someone who takes justice into his own hands: someone who's had blood on those hands, even if he hasn't once killed? Thoughts weigh on him from every side, caving in his skull with a massive migraine. The water sleepily ambles by.

 

It isn't hunger that eventually drives him home just past midnight on the day before New Years' Eve. It isn't the fact that he needs a real bed for one night, that he needs tylenol and bandaids and gauze, or that he can't feel his feet, or even that his suit's starting to stink. Peter climbs onto the roof of his apartment building and stumbles and hobbles down each flight of stairs because he misses Aunt May, because he needs someone to see him for _him,_ to see beyond Spider Man and to see Peter Parker, because he needs someone to hold him close and tell him everything is okay and that he's fine, everything's fine, even if it isn't and he isn't and it still isn't.

 

Peter Parker is by no means a religious man, but if there is a god out there, he prays that he can find even just one of those things in his Aunt May. 

He tiredly digs the spare key out of the bottom of his backpack and turns it over once or twice in his hand. Peter takes a long, deep breath before taking his hat off, slowly opening the door, and padding inside on numb, socked feet.

 

Aunt May is at the table with her papers again. She turns at the sound of the door clicking shut, standing up and backing a little further into the apartment. Peter walks closer: she backs up more with each step he takes. He feels the tears and the shaking wracking his body again, feels a swell of all the bottled up things making his chest go light and forcing his heart up into his throat, near completely clogging it.

 

"How did, what," Aunt May manages while still trying to keep the distance between them. He refuses to cross the gap at that point, stopping dead in his tracks. "What are you doing here?"

 

"It - it's me. Aunt May," Peter pulls off the mask with shaking hands, watching her eyes go wide, the sight of him freezing her in place. He takes a short breath through snot and choked sobs, then another, before finally spitting out in a whisper, "It's always been me, always been..."

 

She nearly knocks him over with the force of her embrace, squeezing him tight and not letting go. He slowly puts his arms around her to return the gesture, his whole body aching and screaming at the pressure as he practically collapses over her, bending down to put his head on her shoulder despite the sharp, continual pain the position brings. He cries into the crook of her neck and he pulls at her back like she'll fade and disappear if he doesn't hold her tight enough, his claws clinging to her shirt through his gloves.

 

"I'm, I'm, m'sorry," Peter mumbles into the curve of her shoulder as she runs a hand through his hair, doing her best not to touch the swollen contusion that's taken over his left cheek. Her touch is the only thing keeping him anchored, her weight pressed against him the only thing holding him here and now, holding him afloat. His breathing shakes and his whole body shudders, breaking up the words, "I didn't, want you to, to, to worry, and, and I thought you'd, you'd h, hate muh, me -"

 

"I'll always worry about you, Peter," She rubs wide circles into his back with her other hand, voice nothing but comforting and quiet. He leans against her a little more, squeezes her a little tighter, everything weighing on him heavier than it ever did. "But that's because I'll always love you. I just... wish I'd known sooner."

 

"I'm sorry," He manages between panting breaths, spit framing his chin as he tries to breathe through congestion and the soreness of his throat. She gently shushes him a bit, peeling him off of her and holding the uninjured side of his face, wiping the tears off his cheek with her thumb. Peter tries to avoid her gaze, eyes shut tight, arms still around her. "Sorry."

 

"Don't be. If anything, I'm sorry I made you think you couldn't tell me." Aunt May brushes some of his hair out of his face and tucks it behind his ear. "I didn't know where you were, if you were okay, and I - I missed you so, so much."

 

"Aunt May," Peter barely manages as he opens his eyes, finally seeing the tears rimming hers beyond a small smile. He pulls her close again, claws sticking in the fabric just a little deeper, nearly picking her up before remembering he needs to bend down again. He chokes out the words between coughs, "Thanks. Thanks for, for, all thi, this. ...Thanks."

 

"Don't mention it. Now," She hugs him back before letting go, and he fumbles around a bit, unhooking his claws after some struggling. Aunt May pats him on the shoulder once or twice before heading back to the main room, her son trailing tiredly behind, shrugging off his coat and his bag and setting them on one of the chairs. She rummages around in the freezer a bit before pulling out a bag of frozen peas. Peter grabs a rag from one of the cabinet drawers before she hands it to him. "Let's get some ice on that."

 

"Right, uh, about that." Peter folds down the top of the suit, showing off the giant, swollen welt on his stomach, the bruise on his cheek dwarfing in comparison. Aunt May stares a while before grabbing a few more packages and heading to the laundry room. She comes back out with the bath towel with the torn edges, three assorted frozen vegetable bags wrapped in a little bundle and passed off to him with a half smile laced with worry. "Um. Thanks."

 

"You should... probably go lay down," Aunt May ushers him over to their only couch, pulling out her phone. Peter half sits up, head and shoulders pressed against the back of the couch. The cold, for once, feels a little like heaven, soothing the stinging pain in his torso: it doesn't bite like the winter wind blistering outside, isn't sharp and doesn't have much of an edge. Aunt May sighs, leaning against the couch as she puts her phone to her ear, "I'll see if I can settle things with the police."

 

"You - you're not gonna tell them, right?" He sits up a bit, pushing his back against the opposite end and propping himself up a little further with his arms. She stops a moment, sure to lock eyes with him before she says anything.

 

"You're my boy. and I'll be damned," She says slowly, forceful but caring. protective. "If anyone so much as tries to put their hands on you. So help me, I'll take your secret to the grave if it's what you think's best."

 

He smiles at that, a stupid, ear to ear wide grin he can feel pushing up on healing tissue and making his face ache. Aunt May gives a little smile back before heading into the hall. Peter settles a bit further on the couch, focusing on the dull chill seeping into his bones, numbing him in the best way possible. He can hear her voice but not the words - yet even just sitting here, he's content to just know that she's here too, that she loves him and she will always love him, and that she'd never turn him away, no matter what.


End file.
